Mark Edwards Worldwide Blog

Why Your Blog Is More Important Than Facebook

2014-05-05T11:16:00.000-05:00

There's a lot to be covered here, much of which you've seen if you're a brand marketer or someone who likes seeing your personal Facebook updates read by most of your followers. I'm not going to repeat things that have been posted all over the Interwebz in the last couple of months, you can see some of those stories at the bottom of this post. But I am going to give you some solutions to a problem you MUST address is you've been using Facebook as one of your prime online outreach methods.

Here's the problem. Facebook is now a public company with lots of shareholders who want a big ROI. How can they increase revenue? By charging for things they used to give away. That means Facebook (and soon Instagram) is decreasing reach on free posts from brands and even personal accounts in hopes you'll pay them to promote your posts and get them seen by lots more people. Want proof? Just look at this graph, courtesy of the 4129 Agency. It clearly shows engagement dropping in a big way between 2012 and 2013, and we're seeing the organic (read: free) engagement continue to nosedive in 2014.

Facebook is throttling engagement in the name of selling advertising, and that's not a good thing for all the brands and small businesses who have started saying "Find Us On Facebook" instead of "Visit Our Website". Here's why.

There used to be three kinds of online media in the minds of most marketers, Owned (like websites and apps), Earned (like news or blog coverage), and Bought (like search engine or Facebook ads). Now, I argue there's a FOURTH kind of online media, BORROWED. That's the media you put your great content on and hope the owners will share it with their users, also known as your customers and prospects.

Many marketers have relied far too heavily on Borrowed Media in the last few years because, well, it was free and lots of people went there. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, the list goes on and on. And now most of those companies have had their IPO's and suddenly realize they need to make money at the hands of the users who have been, rightly or wrongly, taking advantage of the "free ride" for so long. Facebook is clearly leading the pack in this, making it next to impossible for some posts to be seen without the advertiser coughing up some money.

Let's go back to the chart above and dig deeper into the findings the 4129 Agency published. These are statistics for September, 2013, and most people agree the situation is not getting better, it's getting worse for reach.

Organic reach of photos starts to decline after the page gains 10,000 fans

Beyond 1 million likes organic reach of photos drops below four percent

Organic reach of video posts drops below 4.5 percent after 150,000 fans

Status updates have high organic reach. Status updates from pages with 300,000 to half a million fans are seen by 41 percent of the fans

Organic reach of links for pages with one million fans or more has organic reach below 3.5 percent

The company also found that page engagement does not affect the organic reach of posts on Facebook.

If you were using an agency to give you results like that, you'd fire them in a heartbeat. But Facebook is doing this to you if you're not paying them to feature your content. And all the "Find Us On Facebook" mentions in the world mean little if people will hardly ever, maybe NEVER, see your posts once they like you.

So what do you do as a brand, business, or individual? Concentrate on the media you OWN, like your blog. Don't completely blow off Facebook and Twitter, but use them to move people to your own media like your website and blog so you can control what they see, give them reasons to come back, and grow a valuable e-mail database of your fans and followers that YOU own, not the highly leveraged companies you're borrowing space from. You remember your blog, it's either your entire website or part of your website and chances are you haven't updated it in months or longer because you're putting pithy comments and photos on all those networks that aren't letting your fans see them.

Almost everything you have been doing on Facebook can be done on your website. Updates on your blog, contests, trapping information about your visitors, coupons and deals, and much more. And it's YOUR real estate, so YOU own the data you gather, YOU decide what you want to know from your visitors, YOU have supreme analytic power to slice it and dice it any way you want, and with a little work, you can turn ALL of that into an effective e-mail database that will speak to your audience directly, know what they do and don't want to hear about, and can be tested a dozen different ways to see what works. Nothing you can own, earn, buy, or even borrow is more valuable to your brand than a well curated e mail list, and you need to have one to make up for not being able to borrow other people's platforms without paying.

We'll talk about using e mail in excruciating detail in a future blog post, but in the meantime, think of this. Would you rather spend your time posting things to social networks that won't pass them along to your fans or would you rather hire a good Digital Manager or agency and let them grow your website, bring people back to it often, and keep in touch with those people through a coordinated e mail campaign that may be 40 times more effective at making sales than social media posts?

Thinking time is up. Being taken advantage of time is up. It's time to reinvest in your website, blog, and e-mail so you can satisfy your current customers and attract new ones.

Testing...Testing...

2014-03-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

I was recently interviewed for an article on lonelybrand.com about Facebook Optimization for mobile platforms, something I'm very passionate about. One of the things I said was:

Mark Edwards, Managing General Partner at Mark Edwards Worldwide concurs, “I believe in testing, and then testing again, so what I do for most of my Facebook posts is post them so that I can only see them before they go live for the public. Then I look at them on a laptop computer, desktop, Android phone, iPhone, iPad, and two Android tablets. If I can’t see the post the way I want it to look on all those devices, I fix it and go through the same proof. If it looks right, I delete the test post and let the real post go when its time to go live. Nothing beats testing, and while this takes a little time, it makes for the best quality posts possible.”

I live by that mantra because nothing is worse for a marketer than working like crazy on a campaign and then having people not be able to see it. Just this morning, I found a perfect example of that problem. I got a well produced e-mail from The Cheesecake Factory saying I could win up to $250 in gift cards in their "Cheesecake Madness" promotion on Facebook. Now, I'm not one to turn down free cheesecake (although I personally prefer Eli's Cheesecake from Chicago) so I gave the link in the e-mail a click and found myself on the contest page. And this is what I saw for about five minutes.

THE EVIL SPINNING "LOADING" CIRCLE. I use Chrome as my main browser, and for whatever reason, this contest page doesn't play well with Chrome. The kids on the Interwebz call that a FAIL.

I don't know if the good people at the Cheesecake Factory or Socialtyze (who is credited with designing the page) did the right amount of testing, if my browser is somehow blocking the contest page (which it shouldn't as I have it set to let just about everything short of a virus or launch code load) or what the problem was. All I know is that as a consumer, I couldn't play the game and I'm kind of bummed.

Was this a testing problem? Maybe. Was it avoidable? Probably. Would very thorough testing on different browsers, platforms, OS's, and devices have prevented the user experience I had? Most likely.

I'll say what those who work with Mark Edwards Worldwide have heard me say over and over, TEST AND TEST AGAIN. It's well worth the time to make sure what you post, especially on platforms you don't control like Facebook, render and work the way you want them to.

By the way, I just checked the page in the screenshot above. The little "loading" circle is still spinning. Ugh.

Radio Continues To Have A "Missing Link" To Listeners

2014-02-24T16:45:00.000-06:00

I spend a lot of time listening to the radio. All kinds of radio, from AM and FM

stations to Pandora, Stitcher, Beats Audio, and a plethora of other streaming services. And to be clear, if it's sound coming our of a speaker, it's radio. Period. After having spent more than three decades programming radio stations, it's hard not to have sound in the background. I also spend a lot of time on the Internet, sometimes looking at stations' websites and Social Media outposts. What I see online frightens me because most of the terrestrial radio stations, and even some of the streaming services, have a disconnect between their audio product and their online presence, what I call THE MISSING LINK.

In other words, most audio content providers don't think about how people USE their product, what else they're doing when they're listening, or most importantly, how they can take the product that comes out of the speakers to a computer or smartphone screen. Because every day there are less audio delivery devices like the one above and more like this.

Of course, there are still a lot of audio delivery devices that aren't smartphones, but mobile is becoming king and smartphones are the King of Mobile, so let's think of the smartphone as the new radio. And that includes phones with the FM chip that many broadcasters think is their ticket to mobile parity. Which it isn't. Not because having an FM radio in a phone isn't good for free listening or emergencies, but because if there's THE MISSING LINK between the audio and the online component of the radio station, there a decent chance listeners will figure out that the radio station, any radio station, isn't talking to them and doesn't know what their life is all about.

I'm not going to share some of the most glaring examples of THE MISSING LINK, but I've got some great ones saved. There is no shortage of posts that are meaningless, wacky DJ jokes online that don't work if you're reading them and not hearing them, or tweets that are too long, posted by some kind of automation, and either cut off in the middle or edited to being unreadable without a secret decoder ring.

So what's a content creator to do? First, stop thinking that the only way people can hear your content other from your bone crushing transmitter is with one of these in an office. It isn't 2003. Yes, there is still listening on computers, but remember, the world is going mobile and the smartphone is the King of Mobile. Second, start thinking about how your online activities can compliment, contribute to, and complete whatever comes out of the speakers. Have talent and promos send listeners to someplace online and get more information about an important local event. Use your online assets to drive listeners to the station at a certain time for something really special, not just the "Top 9 At 9". Talk to the people who aren't in the programming or marketing departments and find out how they use the audio you put out. You'd be surprised. And probably a little sickened, because in the world of the Millennials and younger people, you're not doing it the way they want it.

And here's the one thing you can do that will improve your online reputation, and therefore your "cred" with your listeners, no matter what format you are, terrestrial or online, and what market size you're in. Look like you care about your online presence. That means update your Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages regularly, use only good pictures, not some bad, blurry phone photo just to slap something up online, and write different posts for different platforms. Anyone with a shred of knowledge about Social Media knows when they're seeing a tweet with lots of @'s and #'s simply reposted on Facebook and they know the person who posted is either unaware of how to tailor posts for each platform, letting automation run wild, or just plain ignorant. Each platform online now demands a unique voice, and you need to take the time to create posts in all the right voices and post them when people might actually see them, not when it's convenient for the intern to put them up.

There's one last thing to think about when it comes to relating to your listeners. Your website is the only piece of the Interwebz you completely control.

Don't force your listeners to look at something like this, it only makes you look foolish. Listeners know what today's great websites look like, and far too many radio station websites are mired in the past because of benign neglect, not enough updates in the onerous barter contract you signed for "website development" or the fact that someone thinks neon colors and DJ pictures are what people come to your site to see. Guess what, that's not the case. You can fix the ugly, uninformative website, and sometimes it's the biggest MISSING LINK.

If you're creating content, any content for that matter, are you providing the full 360 degree experience to your users or is there a MISSING LINK?

The New Website Is Here! The New Website Is Here!

2014-02-10T10:21:00.000-06:00

With all due respect, copyright acknowledgement, and thanks to Steve Martin from "The Jerk", this is kind of how I feel today. The All New Mark Edwards Worldwide Website is here! Not right HERE, but HERE at http://markedwardsworldwide.com.

After helping get clients' websites and online presence all set up, I decided to design a new website from the ground up. You'll find information about Mark Edwards Worldwide's services, links to many wondrous things on the Interwebz, multiple ways to contact me, and much more.

Please drop on by, leave a comment if you like, and let your friends and associates know that if they want to shine online, Mark Edwards Worldwide is ready to help them!

My whole family thanks you.

When Marketing Automation ISN'T Useful

2014-02-04T09:34:00.000-06:00

Those who know me and have worked with me know that I'm a fan of using marketing automation to schedule some messaging. Not all messages, but some, especially on Twitter and text messages. But I'm also a big fan of thinking about the audience and what the message will mean to them. I ran across a case in point this morning and wanted to share it. I'm not picking on the business that I'll talk about, I really love them, but this incident shows that they probably scheduled a text message and didn't account for how their database would be affected by it.

I'm in St. Louis, as is this business. We're having snow today, many schools are closed, and the ones that aren't will most likely be sending students home early because the heaviest of the snow will be coming starting around noon. The Missouri Department Of Transportation has issued a "stay off the roads" alert so they can get to the snow and keep people safe. So it's fair to say this isn't the day to be going out unless you really have to.

Even with all that happening, I got this text message at 8:40 this morning.

I've got to believe this was a scheduled message, if for no other reason that any reasonable person would know not to ask their customers to come out during the time the snow is supposed to be falling hard and the state wants everyone off the roads.

So what happened here? My hope is that the message was scheduled in advance and the person in charge of marketing for this restaurant either wasn't up yet to assess the weather or just forgot that the message was in the queue. At least I hope that's what happened.

There's an important lesson here. Taking advantage of marketing automation is usually a good thing, but if you do, you need to be able to stop pre-scheduled messages from going out and be able to do it fast. In this case, it's because the weather stinks and asking people to come out in a snowstorm might not reflect best on the business. But scheduled messages could need to be stopped for any number of reasons, a news event that might take people's attention and make the business look crass, the death of a famous person, or even a public relations problem for other outlets of the same chain or the parent company.

Sometimes "radio silence" or rescheduling a small promotion is the least helpful to your business, yet safest way to act. But you've got to know when your messaging is going out and be able to stop it, especially because your reputation, if not your sales, will benefit from an abundance of caution.

Related articles

In Praise Of The Under Appreciated HR Director

2014-01-12T11:03:00.000-06:00

This post was originally published on Mark Edwards Uncensored on January 10, 2014

Here's a question for business owners and managers. When was the last time you hugged your HR department?

It occurs to me that the human resource manager, human resource assistants, recruiters or whatever you call the people in your HR department are the unsung heroes of business in 2014. They have to find the right people, train the people, and then retain the people for it as long as possible. With all the talent available these days, that's a very very tall order.

Yes, the government says that the unemployment rate dropped to 6.7% today. Theoretically, that's good news, especially if you ignore the low number of jobs created in December. But it also means that a lot of people have just stopped looking for jobs and left the work force. And that might make the HR department's job a little harder because some of those people could be diamonds in the rough for your company. Perhaps their skill set doesn't exactly line up with what you're looking for, maybe they are over 40 and have had jobs in industries that don't exactly match yours, or maybe they just were honest about how much money they wanted to make when they filled out applications. For whatever reason, they've climbed out of the talent pool and therefore can't be used as human capital.

How important is finding and keeping talent? Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, opened the 2013 event in Davos by asking "Is talentism the new capitalism?". He talked about the importance of talent and how having the right people can provide a huge competitive advantage for any organization. Everyone has the same computer programs, analytic tools, and syndicated data to work with, but the key to making all those things work right is having the right talent to use them, interpret them, and put them to work for your business. And in most companies, finding that talent falls squarely on the shoulders of the overworked and undervalued human resource department.

Many businesses try to help their HR department with this daunting task by

getting them applicant tracking software so they don't have to spend as much time looking at every application that comes in for every opening no matter how big or small it is. We all know how the software works, whether it's Taleo or Kenexa or another vendor's system. The HR person puts in the parameters they are looking for, adds the keywords, presses the button, and the job is posted for all to see. Then the system scans the applications, looks for the best matches, and puts them in a file. The applicants who don't match the qualifications set by the HR department sometimes get a nice rejection letter but tend to go into another file never to be seen again.

Technology is good, and having been a hiring manager I know that often times most of the people applying for a job simply aren't qualified. That's why applicant tracking software was invented, to weed those people out so that the overworked HR department or recruiter can concentrate on the best people based on their keywords.

But technology has its limits. In an ever-changing world where so many people are trying to reinvent themselves or enter a new industry, applicant tracking systems don't see how the skills these candidates bring to the table can match the keywords for the open positions. It's no one's fault, it's just the way computers work and the applicant tracking system is doing the best job you can based on the information it was given. So is the recruiter really getting the very best person for the job? According to the applicant tracking software, they are. But in reality they may not be. And if that perfect person ends up getting noticed by your competitor, your company has lost the opportunity to acquire a valuable piece of human capital. Sometimes, and probably more often than that, the real best person for the job doesn't make it over one of the benchmarks in the ATS and they get thrown out, leaving the company with no idea that they're missing out on a potential superstar.

To try to show this theory in a real world experiment, I applied for a job that I am well-qualified for yesterday after 5 PM. The application was through an applicant tracking system which was nice enough to send me an automated response saying they had gotten my stuff and would consider me for the job. At a little after 11 PM last night, six hours after making the application and most likely while the HR department at this company was far from their desks, I received a rejection letter for the job I just applied for. I can't prove this, but I can bet that my application was never seen by the retina of any human eye. It didn't match the keywords or got bounced for some other reason and the recruiter or HR director at this company will never know that I applied for the job. They lost the chance to at least investigate the acquisition of good human capital. And if I get a similar job at their competition, they lose the never ending battle of having the best people in their company.

I don't envy the role of a recruiter or HR director in this day and age. Too many tasks, too little time, and not enough help makes the job one of the most challenging in any firm. But companies who don't invest in finding the best human capital and looking beyond the applicant tracking systems are likely missing the opportunity to grow a world-class organization. Not having the human touch in the recruiting process could theoretically make the difference between success and failure for a project or an entire company. Setting one parameter unwisely in the ATS can rob a business of the person they need to move forward without them even knowing it because the HR Director or hiring manager will never see the application.

I worked for a decade at Viacom, and the chairman of the company, Sumner Redstone, was well known for saying that his most valuable assets go down the elevator at the end of the day. He knew that it was the people that worked for him that made his brands great. He also knew it was the people that did the work that generated the profits that he and his stockholders enjoyed. Even the strongest brand has to be powered by human capital.

So I go back to the question I opened this post with. When was the last time you

hugged your HR department? What have you done for them to make their jobs a little easier, a lot more productive, and help contribute more to the acquisition of the very best human capital out there? In 2014, it's about the people working in the companies that will decide success or failure. Think about that when you're looking at your HR budget or when you walk past that department in your company. Those people need a hug, and a whole lot more.

Mercer released a report about the importance of human capital. You can find a link to download the Executive Summary here. If you're in HR, you might want to print it and leave it on your boss's chair.

Mark Edwards Worldwide Client Tesh Media Group Completes Development Of New TV Show

2013-10-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

One of Mark Edwards' biggest projects at the Tesh Media Group was taking the company into the world of Branded Content and online video. This week, the Tesh Media Group announced they had completed development of the "Intelligence For Your Life" TV show, set to air in the Fall of 2014.

Many of the concepts in the show were developed by Mark Edwards and are now available to clients through Mark Edwards Worldwide. Below is the official Tesh Media release on their new TV show.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The TeshMedia Group has now completed the final development phase of its fall 2014 strip “Intelligence for Your Life,” the new half hour daily, syndicated TV program designed as a local news companion. The unique slate of programming features former Entertainment Tonight host John Tesh in his return to television, actress Connie Sellecca, host of the Intelligence for Your Health Radio Show, and millennial expert Gib Gerard. The hosts highlight top headlining news stories through a unique, personalized life coaching approach with branded content and experts in key health and wellness, finance, dating and relationship, and personal legal advice categories. Find out more at: Intelligenceforyourlife.com

“We’ve had a chance to prove this content-curation concept with millions of our fans and with national brands over the past 12 years”

“Intelligence for Your Life” is part of the “Intelligence For” brand and trademark (health, relationships, pets, kids, money, etc.) that Tesh and Sellecca first created for Tesh’s wildly popular radio show by the same name, which continues to grow rapidly, holding a weekly cume of 8.2 million avid listeners.

“We’ve had a chance to prove this content-curation concept with millions of our fans and with national brands over the past 12 years,” says Tesh. “Now we’ve developed a unique way to not only entertain viewers with ‘news they can use,’ but we’ve also become adept at crafting ‘native advertising’ for our brand partners. National and local advertisers can now travel along with these ‘intelligent’ tips as they continue into the digital universe.”

TeshMedia has numerous Fortune 500 clients, including Walmart, Home Depot, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Geico Insurance, PetSmart and Toys R Us.

For more information on John Tesh, Connie Sellecca and TeshMedia, please visit Tesh.com.

Mark Edwards was honored to be part of the Launch Team for this show and wishes everyone in the Tesh Media Group the very best as they prepare for a daily show. In the meantime, you can see video segments from the show at IntelligenceForYourLife.com.

A New Chapter For Mark Edwards Worldwide

2013-10-03T16:44:00.002-05:00

I wanted you to know about a decision I've made. As I see the digital media landscape unfolding and the opportunities to create a myriad of highly effective content growing, I'm returning to working with selected clients at the consultancy I've run since 2007, Mark Edwards Worldwide. This move will allow me to maximize my time and efficiency while sharing the things I've learned about the digital, social media, and new technology spaces with clients who really want to succeed in those worlds. It gives me great pleasure to say that TeshMedia is on the client list so I'll be able to continue to work with John and his team going forward.

After working for a year and a half as Senior Vice President of Content Development with John Tesh and the TeshMedia Group, we've accomplished a lot, more than doubling our online audience, growing website visits and conversions, and starting a video version of John's Intelligence For Your Life brand.

I've had the chance to implement countless online and social media programs, develop and fine tune best practices, learn an astonishing amount about online video and TV production, and help contribute to the continued success of the John Tesh Radio Show. It's been the most rewarding professional experience of my career, and I know the things I've learned working with John and his gifted team will help me immensely. You can see many of the fruits of our labors at the new IntelligenceForYourLife.com and in our new mobile apps.

I'm always on the lookout for the next opportunity, whether it be in a consulting, project, or full time capacity, so please keep me in mind for anything you might know about and feel free to share my contact information with your network.

I'd like to thank John and the TeshMedia family for a wonderful experience and thank you for your friendship and support. Let's stay in touch and do great things together. You can find me here and get all my contact info at http://about.me/markedwards.

Media Jobs Vaporize In Last Ten Years

2013-02-04T11:21:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted to this blog because of all my activities for the Tesh Media Group, but I thought this post belonged here because it so dramatically shows the state of the media industry, and it isn't pretty. Thanks to Business Insider for the post.

How Jobs In The Media Industry Got Demolished In The Last 10 Years [Charts]

Joe Weisenthal | Jan. 30, 2013, 3:53 PM | 19,613 | 5

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

The internet has caused massive disruption across the media landscape, causing a surge in job insecurity at traditional establishments.

But now we have a good look at the numbers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has put together a presentation on the recent history and direction of media jobs. It's not pretty.

Across several different industries (radio, TV, newspapers, film, etc.) there's been a steady downward march in employment.

Total media jobs peaked at the beginning of the decade.

BLS.gov

Employment in the book/periodical/music industry has been on a steady downward trend, and in 2011 the bottom completely fell out of the industry.

BLS.gov

Sound recording? Same deal.

BLS.gov

You don't even want to look at the falloff in newspaper reporting.

BLS.gov

Radio? Oof.

BLS.gov

Motion picture distribution has been on an ugly trend (thanks Netflix).

BLS.gov

On the flipside, production employment has been all over the map, but not that bad.

BLS.gov

Television broadcasting jobs hav gone down.

BLS.gov

But at least internet publishing is up!

BLS.gov

There are many media jobs where growth is expected. Unfortunately for reporters, reporters aren't one of them.

BLS.gov

Unionization across the media/information landscape has been on an ongoing decline.

BLS.gov

And of course, here's the culprit. The internet.

BLS.gov

The good news! Although job security is not good, workplace safety is better than in the average field.

BLS.gov

We Didn't Start The Fire-Bob Shannon

2012-09-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

I once worked for a "Group Guy" who talked a lot about how broadcasters didn't have a good sense of history, either of their own station or the industry in general. He was spot on, and I've seen that time after time over the years. One glowing exception to that is my friend Bob Shannon, who through his book Turn It Up! American Radio Tales 1946-1996 has captured radio history in a way that few before him had.

Bob wrote an article for a website today, and graciously allowed me to share it with you. If you have ANY connection to radio, I think you'll enjoy it, and maybe learn a thing or two.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

radioinfo | September 11, 2012

The importance of those who came before

By Bob ShannonSpotMedia ServicesPresident

MINNEAPOLIS – “Today the definition of media is changing at a pace that’s almost unrecognizable. It’s an exciting time with unlimited possibilities and opportunities for re-invention. But, it would be sad to forget, or worse yet, to never know what came before and how and why it set the stage for the future.”

Those are words I wrote in the foreword of my book, Turn It Up! American Radio Tales 1946-1996. The thing is, they’re true. Case in point, Elvis Presley.

As a child, Presley listened to Southern Gospel, Grand Ole Opry Country, hardcore gutbucket blues, and race music, what Billboard’s Jerry Wexler re-named rhythm and blues. Before he was 13 – this is just conjecture on my part, but I’ll bet it’s true – Elvis was listening to a local Memphis station, WDIA, where he likely heard 1948’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” by Wynonie Harris. And by the time he turned 15, in 1950, like every kid within earshot of a radio, there was WLAC beaming out of Nashville re-defining what American nighttime listening pleasure meant, especially in the backseat of cars.

What Presley learned he synthesized: Somehow, he took gospel, country, and R & B and mixed them together to create something new, something maybe even a little dangerous, a new potion the world had never heard before. Without his early influences Elvis would never have become what he did. But without Presley, what came after wouldn’t have either.

“Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn’t been an Elvis, there wouldn’t have been a Beatles.” – John Lennon

“When I first heard Elvis’ voice, I just knew I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.” – Bob Dylan

“It was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear, and somehow we all dreamed it.” – Bruce Springsteen

The Fathers and Sons of Contemporary Radio

What Elvis was to rock ‘n roll, Gordon McLendon and Todd Storz, the two men often called the “Fathers of Top 40,” were to radio. But, they didn’t do it alone. Among the names often lost to history is Bill Stewart. In 1954, right around the time Elvis was recording “That’s Alright, Mama,” Stewart, who’d been with Storz in Omaha to witness and “midwife” the birth of top 40 at KOWH, was in McLendon’s Dallas tightening KLIF’s playlist, creating a cume magnet, and re-inventing radio as a modern medium. Within 90 days KLIF went from #10 to #1. And it stayed there for years.

But, lest you miss the point, before music (read as records) came to radio, the medium was a giant, and what it did and how it did it still influences what we do today. Sadly, most of us don’t know it or even care.

On October 18, 2011, just short of six months after he celebrated his 101^st birthday, Norman Corwin died. Ever heard his name? No? Well, I’m not surprised.

Corwin’s body of work has been described as “too prodigious, perceptive, personal and profound for me to even begin to list.” Whoa! Not only are these grand superlatives but they come from a man who is – I want to say this gingerly – not given to easy praise because, well because, his standards have always been incredibly high and he’s never, ever, accepted mediocrity. So, believe it when Ron Jacobs writes: “If you think it all began with Allen Freed and the rest of the Rock ’n Roll/Top Forty stations and deejays then you might want to learn more about the father of the “Theater Of The Mind” and most things good in radio.” (Click here.)

You may be saying, “Cool.” My response to that is — I wonder if you know who Jacobs is or why his contributions to American contemporary radio informs most of what is still being done today? Here’s a snippet of his story.

In 1965 Jacobs, along with consultant Bill Drake, re-invented Top 40 at KHJ, Los Angeles. Like many of radio’s success stories, KHJ’s Boss Radio was quickly copied in cities everywhere, by programmers who loved the way it sounded but had nary of notion of how the station was built to reflect the culture of the city it was licensed to; and, by aspiring baby disc jockeys trying to hone their craft and knew a good act when they heard it. (“Good Morgan, Tulsa!”)

“A friend from LA sent me a tape and I was stupefied,” says WPLJ, New York’s Scott Shannon. “Robert W. Morgan’s intelligence and one-on-one manner were an inspiration. When I was designing my early Scott Shannon ‘personality,’ I tried to borrow Robert W.’s speech patterns and intelligence and combine it with some of the Real Don Steele’s energy.”

In 1958, Jacobs flew from Hawaii to Flint, Michigan, where he met Mike Joseph. He recalls that Joseph changed the way he looked at things. “He was into formatics,” he told me, “and I’d never thought of radio that way. Before Mike Joseph there were no pie charts, and no clocks. For the first time, I could picture a wheel and shrink things down to an hour.” Another Jacobs’ mentor was Bill Gavin, the founder of The Gavin Report and the Music Director of “Lucky Lager Dance Time,” a pre-top 40-countdown show. “Bill taught me discipline. He told me that ‘we’re here to play the hits, not to sell records.’” Gavin also taught Jacobs how to structure a countdown show, a skill that came in handy when he and Tom Rounds launched “American Top 40” with Casey Kasem, in July of 1970.

But, the Big Kahuna was the show Jacobs produced while he was still at KHJ. It was called “The History of Rock ‘n Roll.” When we talked about it in 2002, Jacobs explained that the program would never have seen the light of day had he not been exposed to NBC’s “’Biographies In Sound,” during one of his first radio jobs, at KGU,Honolulu, Hawaii’s first radio station. (For the record, “The History of Rock and Roll” set the standard for all long-play radio specials that followed, including “Album Greats” and “The Royalty of Rock,” shows created over 30 years ago byRadioInfo’s publisher, Michael Harrison).

As for Mr. Jacobs, he just turned 75 and is alive and well in his beloved Hawaii. Besides radio, he’s the author of numerous books, including Obamaland: Who Is Barack Obama? and his soon to be published tome about football:NFL Locker Room Confessions.

Always busy and always irascible, Mr. Jacob’s body of work, like that of his hero, Mr. Corwin, is too prodigious, perceptive, personal and profound for me to even begin to list. (What I’m sure of is that I’ll hear from him if he doesn’t like what I’ve written.) Click here for his blog.

All of us have our heroes and, if we’re lucky, most of us find a mentor or two along the way. For Jacobs, everything he did at KHJ and, subsequently, at KGB,San Diego, Watermark Productions, Radio Express, on the radio and in print came from what he learned from those who came before and his own sparking intuition.

By the way, I can’t write about Jacobs without acknowledging that one of his biggest heroes and mentors was Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley’s manager. “The Colonel became one of the idols of my life. Whenever I produce anything, I ask myself, “How would Colonel do this?” (Omission of the word “the” in front of “Colonel” is intentional.)

Bytes and Pieces

Harvard was fine, but only to the degree that it helped him reach his immediate goals. Once it didn’t, Mark Zuckerberg, like Bill Gates before him, was gone.

In 1975, Gates left Cambridge, MA for Albuquerque, and left academia to meet Ed Roberts, the man who invented the Altair 8800, the first “personal computer.” Paul Allen and Bill Gates, along with thousands of hobbyists, first read about Roberts and his invention in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and by March the boys – and they were still boys – were in the desert showing Roberts the computer language they’d developed, what came to be called Altair Basic. (By the way, Roberts wasn’t one to pay attention to product names and so he left it to the editor of Popular Electronics, Lee Solomon to come up with something catchy. It was Solomon’s daughter, Lauren, who suggested the computer be named after the planet the Starship Enterprise was heading towards that night on television, Altair Six.) Roberts agreed to distribute Altair Basic and he and the two Microsoft founders worked out a deal that would allow Roberts to earn ownership of the product once he’d achieved a goal based on sales. What the agreement didn’t foresee was that the fledgling MS would and did create other versions of Basic, which they alone would continue to own. This ownership position, prior to the development of MS-DOS in the early eighties, was what Microsoft’s success was built on.

In 2010, when Ed Roberts died Gates paid tribute to his mentor. “Ed was willing to take a chance on us – two young guys interested in computers long before they were commonplace – and we have always been grateful to him. The day our first untested software worked on his Altair was the start of a lot of great things.” Indeed, and Gates never looked back. Interestingly enough, particularly if you’ve seen “The Social Network,” such behavior rings a bell. But, I’ll leave the dot connecting to you.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg left Harvard with no degree, moved to Palo Alto and connected with Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster. Parker, while sensing that Zuckerberg was wet behind the ears, but on the right track, introduced him to the Silicon Valley keepers of the money train. Yes, it really was Parker who suggested it be called Facebook rather than THE Facebook and it was Parker taught Zuckerberg how to build a business and, more importantly, how to maintain control of it.

Another of Zuckerberg’s mentors – and you see this coming, don’t you? – was Steve Jobs. When Jobs died, Zuckerberg posted this message on his Facebook page: “Steve, thanks for showing me that what you build can change the world.”

Jobs, himself, was heavily influenced by a college friend named Robert Friedland, a man described as charismatic and able to bend situations to his very strong will. In Walter Isaacson’s book on Jobs, an Apple engineer remembers Friedland as being mercurial, confident and a little dictatorial. “Steve admired that, and he became more like that after spending time with Robert.”

On The Shoulders of Giants

I know I left out a lot of names. In radio: Marconi, Tesla, Armstrong, Sklar, Drake and Donahue. And, in the computer world: Hewlett and Packard, Tim Berners-Lee (the Father of the internet), and Andreessen. But, my goal isn’t to pay homage to individuals, it is to say that all of us owe a debt to those who came before, and have a responsibility to pass what we’ve learned on to those who will follow.

That doesn’t mean that just because someone is old, he or she has pearls of wisdom. (I particularly like what Bob Lefsetz wrote on this subject a few weeks ago: “That’s what’s wrong with the old farts. Especially in the music business. They’re so busy resting on their laurels, they don’t want to take a chance, they’re eaten alive by youngsters experimenting in new forms, taking risks.”) By the same token, it also doesn’t mean that those who fly around on the wild and crazy wings of youth have all the answers simply because they’ve just learned how to fly.

Here’s the takeaway: If you’re young and you think you know it all, you don’t. If you’re older and you think you’ve nothing more to contribute, it’s not true. And if you’ve been fortunate to reach what we call old age — like my father, who’ll turn 90 next March God willing — there aren’t enough words to thank you. Because of you, because of what you did, and because of what you left behind for me to build on, I’ve been able to move the cheese forward and give my daughter something to build on too.

I get that we didn’t start the fire, and I believe that the circle will be unbroken.

Bob Shannon, a veteran DJ, programmer, syndication executive and writer, is president of Minneapolis-based SpotMedia Services and the author of “Turn It Up! American Radio Tales 1946-1996.” He can be phoned at 206-755-5162 or e-mailed at bobshannonworks@gmail.com.

Arbitron Could Learn A Thing Or Two From Nielsen

2012-07-20T16:41:00.000-05:00

From the Radio Beat:

Arbitron, the radio ratings company, has been beset with criticism for its Portable People Meter (PPM) and diary methods of audience measurement. Programmers in PPM markets readily admit that they have made decisions about what they air and how they promote their stations based solely on the vagueness of the PPM.

It looks like the biggest television ratings company, Nielsen, has seen the light and is making some much needed changes in the way they measure TV and new media usage. Here's the story, complete with lots of industry jargon:

Nielsen To Overhaul Local Metrics In 4Q

by David Goetzl, Friday, July 20, 2012 7:30 AM

Nielsen’s overhaul of its local measurement service with set-top-box (STB) data and a new code reader will begin rolling out late this year in the Charlotte, Dallas and St. Louis markets. The new data will be available alongside the current ratings in early 2013, allowing stations an opportunity to evaluate it before a switchover.

Station groups with a presence in the three initial markets -- including NBCUniversal, Belo, Cox and Gannett -- will be able to both explore the data’s reliability and ways to integrate it into their workflow systems over a period that could run six months. The three launch markets currently get ratings via local people meters (LPMs).

As the new service takes hold in the October-December period this year, Nielsen will begin implementing it in five markets that use set meters: Albuquerque, Birmingham, Greenville, S.C., Nashville and New Orleans. Also, the methodology will debut in 12 markets to be announced soon that use diaries.

With 20 markets experimenting with the new methodology by early 2013, the plan is to have the system up and running in most of the country's 210 markets some time in 2014. All markets will have a “parallel period” to examine the new and current systems side by side to get comfortable.

“We want them to start evaluating how they would do business with it,” said Pat Dineen, a Nielsen senior vice president.

A permanent switchover won’t come without lengthy and detailed conversations with clients, some of whom have expressed eagerness to push ahead with the new system. Others have expressed reticence. From stations to ad agencies, all want more detail and assurances.

“They’re not going to give us an easy time on that,” Dineen said. “We need to be very, very clear and very, very transparent. We need to work with the (Media Rating Council) to make sure our methodology works and works for the whole marketplace.”

The new "hybrid" service does not throw out the entire legacy system. Markets will continue to use panels derived from LPMs, set meters and diaries -- although the sample sizes in LPM and set-meter markets will be effectively quadrupled and doubled in diary markets.

Those panels will be supplemented by STB data and code readers. The newly developed code readers are electronic devices that will separately monitor every TV in a home, picking up audio signals from content carrying a Nielsen watermark.

Nielsen's belief is the combination will allow for more precise modeling as the legacy operations provide information on demographics. The STB data offers granular second-by-second viewing data. The code readers serve as a backstop to ensure viewing is not counted if a set-top-box remains on, but no one is watching.

Nielsen believes the hybrid model will allow it to project ratings for a full market, which includes homes that receive only over-the-air TV and others that don’t have a set-top box.

It might also protect against potentially skewed data coming from STBs. For example, the two largest cable operators, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, don’t make data available to Nielsen or any other measurement company.

Right away, data from a huge portion of U.S. homes is unobtainable. And, in a market where one of those leading operators serves loads of homes -- such as Philadelphia or New York City -- using STB information to project results for the full market carries a risk.

Nielsen obtains STB data from cable operator Charter and DirecTV, but concedes it will need access to more sources. Return-path data is a broader term often used to describe STB data and other streams.

Clients have lobbied for some use of STB data, since they believe it could cut down on huge swings in ratings. Nielsen believes the information along with the code reader should offer more stability.

“Until I see data and until I have a better understanding of the complete methodology, it’s hard to say,” said Pat Liguori, who oversees research for the ABC-owned stations.

Clients will have more to evaluate than just TV measurement. The new service is designed to capture multiplatform consumption across TVs, PCs, mobile devices and tablets. With sample sizes growing significantly, Dineen said the plan is to be able to gauge four-screen usage in the homes added.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/179200/nielsen-to-overhaul-local-metrics-in-4q.html?print#ixzz21CU7ZRk4

YO....Arbitron! Do you think you could learn a few things from the people who measure "Picture Radio"? I do.

Just TRY To Listen To A Radio Station Stream Online

2012-07-11T09:35:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend, I tried to listen several times to a very major market radio station owned by a very large multimedia company via their online stream, and I thought my ears would start bleeding. It was a complete nightmare.

I don't want to mention the station or owner because they would be truly embarrassed to know that their very special programming over the weekend was almost unlistenable if you were trying to listen online as I was in St. Louis. This company claims to have a "streaming strategy", but by listening to their big broadcast from this very major market, it's clear that whatever they dream of delivering simply isn't happening.

The music content and high powered Air Personalities sounded GREAT. Its when the breaks came that things imploded. During the eight or nine minute commercial breaks, I heard commercials start and then get cut off, local commercials begin and then get replaced by streaming spots that ran over and into the net commercial, periods of dead air, the same spots up to four times in one break, and other atrocities that are guaranteed to send many listeners away from the stream.

And let's not even talk about how the stream took up a tab in my browser instead of opening in a new window, so I had to make sure I didn't close it by mistake. And I NEVER went to that tab to look at the ads the company placed on the page for my viewing pleasure.

I had the same awful experience on my Android phone, where I went to this major multimedia company's app to listen but heard the same brutally bad commercial breaks.

NOTE TO BROADCASTERS: The future is mobile. The future is streaming, not those big towers on the Empire State Building or in the middle of cornfields. If you want to compete with people like Pandora, who know how to run short, smooth breaks, you've got to pay attention to what goes out on the stream during your local breaks.

Please don't send your listeners to the Emergency Room with bleeding ears from poorly programmed streaming breaks. Thankyouverymuch.

Leading Social Media Blogger Says "Hire Mark Edwards"

2012-06-21T08:06:00.000-05:00

One of the most listened to voices in the Social Media world belongs to Sarah Evans and her blog Sarah's Faves. Sarah has become a leading Social Media thinker and has just joined the company Trackly as Chief Evangelist. She's well known in Public Relations and Social Media circles as an innovator, big thinker, and one of the best and brightest in the online world. Sarah handpicked three people who should be working in Social Media or Public Relations and posted their stories on her blog. I was honored to be one of the three people she thinks should be hired, and here's what she had to say about me and my work.

Name: Mark Edwards

How to Create Real Relationships With Social Marketing http://t.co/4DfHaWst

June 19, 2012 7:57 pm via ifttt ReplyRetweetFavorite

@markedwards

Mark Edwards

Twitter: @MarkEdwards Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markedwardscubfan Blog: Markedwardsuncensored.com, Markedwardsworldwide.blogspot.com

Dream job title: Employee. I’m able to help in so many ways that I’ll let you, the employer, decide how I can help you best and what to call me. Three adjectives that describe you: experienced, innovative, connectedIf I’m hired by your organization I will: bring unmatched experience, knowledge, enthusiasm, and new levels of success to you.

What kind of culture are you looking for? An environment that has energy, teamwork, and a culture of cooperation. I’ve worked in small offices, huge offices, and alone. The culture of the organization I join should foster creativity, no matter how many people are in the office.

What’s your most impressive professional accomplishment? What about personal? Almost singlehandedly and secretly building and launching a brand new radio station, including a full suite of social media outposts and a marketing plan, in 18 days last year in Kansas City. Personally, I’m most proud of my three incredible sons. You can’t do anything more important than being a parent.

How many years experience do you have? 27 as a content creator, brand manager, and marketer using a score of traditional and new media resources.

Where should your ideal job be based? St. Louis, MO because it’s the best place I’ve ever lived to raise a family.

Are you willing to relocate? YES, Chicagoland would be my first choice, but I’ll go anywhere for the right job. I can also use the miracle of the Interwebz to work from World Headquarters in St. Louis.

Want to hire Mark? Email him at edwardsmark@gmail[.]com.

It's truly an honor to be recognized by a heavy hitter like Sarah, and yes, I'm available now for full time employment or project work through Mark Edwards Worldwide. If you'd like to talk about how I can help your organization, please use any of the methods in Sarah's post to contact me. You'll be glad you did!

John Tesh (of all people) erasing the line between streaming service and radio station

2012-05-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

The following post is from The Music Meeting, my blog about music for grown ups.

I'm a huge believer that the future of music is mobile, whether it be listening in the car, on a smartphone, or on some kind of device that we haven't even thought of yet.

That being said, I'm very intrigued by a project John Tesh is working on in Los Angeles. His radio show was carried on an FM station there, but it got taken off. Rather than try to find another station, John decided to build his own "radio station" on the Internet, complete with streaming audio and mobile applications.

The highly regarded Internet industry newsletter RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter asked me to write about the K-TeshLA project, and here in one handy place are all three parts of the story.

What do you think? Would you listen to something that sounds like a radio station even though its only online? Your comments are welcome below!

RAIN Guest essay: John Tesh (of all people) erasing the line between streaming service and radio station

Mark Edwards is an award-winning radio programmer with experience at WLIT/Chicago, KOSI/Denver, KYKY, KEZK, and WVRV in St. Louis, and more. He's currently managing general partner of Mark Edwards Worldwide, his multi-disciplinary consulting practice.

There’s very little doubt that mobile and personalized content are the future of what is now radio, and in some cases that big tower in the corn field won’t even be part of a “radio station” in the not too distant future.

Multimedia content creator John Tesh may be among the first to see and act upon that future. He's put a radio station online that, in fact, isn’t a radio station or a streaming service; it’s both and neither at the same time. Last week, the entertainer launched K-TeshLA (see RAIN coverage here) a site that looks like a"best in class" local radio station site complete with a 24-hour streaming audio service as part of the package. The only difference between this site and most other Contemporary Christian radio stations is that there’s no traditional radio station connected to the site, just the stream.

(The site was launched the site after Tesh's syndicated radio show was dropped by Salem’s KFSH in Los Angeles. Heard daily on over 300 stations in the U.S. and Canada, Tesh wanted to make sure he was still reaching the important Los Angeles market, and so built what's ostensibly a complete online radio station.)

The K-TeshLA site is completely localized for the Los Angeles market, right down to showing the local time and weather, working with local charities and churches, and doing actual contests, giving away $100 a day and a grand prize of an iPad. The station is building its own database of listeners, and has wasted no expense in designing an engaging website and high quality streaming player. Both the site and player have deep integration with Facebook, something not found at many FM or AM radio stations.

While the station doesn’t have a mobile site or streaming app yet, K-TeshLA is available on the TuneIn Radio application, and it looks and feels just like any broadcast property on the roster of TuneIn’s stations. Having that parity with traditional broadcast outlets is certainly one of the first steps to leveling out the playing field between stations that have a transmitter and those who are going directly for online and mobile listeners.

Listening to K-TeshLA, one wouldn’t know that it wasn’t a regular FM station. The stream features lots of music, IDs, and Tesh’s “Intelligence For Your Life” content repurposed from his terrestrial radio show, not to mention both national and local advertising.

The big question is, will a localized Internet-only radio station succeed in the world of AM and FM broadcasters and their continuing consolidation into apps like iHeartRadio? We’ll look at that in the next part of this essay.

RAIN Guest essay pt. 2: Can KTeshLA (and other "local" Internet radio) succeed?

Mark Edwards is an award-winning radio programmer with experience at WLIT/Chicago, KOSI/Denver, KYKY, KEZK, and WVRV in St. Louis, and more. He's currently managing general partner of Mark Edwards Worldwide, his multi-disciplinary consulting practice. This is Part 2 of his guest essay; read Part 1 here.

In yesterday’s RAIN, we looked at John Tesh’s hyper-localKTeshLA website and streaming service. Today, let’s tackle the question of how stations like KTeshLA and other locally targeted online only sites can be successful going forward.

John Tesh already has a radio show on more than 300 stations (he launched KTeshLA after losing his Los Angeles affiliate). His show was one of the higher-rated dayparts on KFSH in Los Angeles, so there was already a dedicated local audience for his content, and he was already producing material for his national show. Given Tesh’s recording, touring, writing, and other activities, generating cash from the online venture may not have been as much of a concern as it might be for a standalone business. Staying in touch with a community -- especially without the benefit of a bone-crushing terrestrial signal -- can be costly.

One of the most significant differences between Tesh’s site and the sites of other people trying to “make it” as web radio stars is that Tesh’s site looks great. It's as good as any AM or FM radio station site on the Internet. If anything, the site takes too much from radio stations in an effort to looklike a radio station as opposed to what it is: something between a radio station and a streaming service. While the site carries banner ads, it isn’t plastered with them hodgepodge like some other “web radio” sites.

Taking the time and spending the money to design a world-class website should be the first part of the plan for any webcaster. Clearly, the TeshMedia team considered the visual appeal of their product along with the sound, something rare in the world of webcasting. (Some of the ugliest websites I’ve seen over the last 15 years have been for air personalities putting a show or podcast on the web. They’re littered with banner ads, bad photos, and unusable navigation links.)

A significant expense for the local webcaster is for the stream itself. Beyond royalties and bandwidth costs, some kind of automation system needs to push out the content if it is a full-time format, even if it’s a podcast or constantly repeating three or four hour show. There are ways to do the automation inexpensively, but streaming should not be a bargain basement decision. Great quality, constant uptime, and full-time support are needed for a successful stream, and that costs money. The good news is there are new technologies on the horizon that will significantly lower the cost of streaming, and add personalization and ad-targeting to the stream, helping to generate more revenue.

The world is racing to a mobile, personalized, on-demand model for entertainment, and the opportunity for locally-targeted Internet-based stations is here. If the stations are done right, they’ll generate traffic and response for local advertisers. It can be done, and now is the time to get started on hyper-targeted projects like KTeshLA.

We'll wrap this up with some comments from the people behind KTeshLA and see how their station is performing.

RAIN Guest essay pt. 3: KTeshLA starts "writing the playbook" for radio stations without transmitters

Previously in this series, I looked at the differences and similarities between the online-only KTeshLA.com “radio station” and its terrestrial counterparts. Make no mistake about it: everyone working on this project sees it as a radio station without a transmitter, not a streaming channel, a supplemental service of some kind, or anything else.

“John told me he wanted KTeshLA to be like a regular radio station,” said Chris Shannon, Program Director. “We’re adding more to it every day and treating it like a radio station.” That’s evident by listening, online or through mobile aggregator TuneIn. (The station recently launched its own mobile apps for iOS and Android, but I found the listening experience on TuneIn to be far superior to the Triton Digital-provided Android app.)

Clearly, KTeshLA is a work in progress; the streaming player lacks artist and title information, for example. But the concept of running a real “radio station” and doing it "direct-to-consumer" -- as in without a transmitter, corporate ownership, or the expense of all of that -- is incredibly attractive to content providers like John Tesh and his TeshMedia Group.

A direct-to-consumer, online- and mobile-optimized radio station could be used for a myriad of purposes: to target a single locale (like KTeshLA), to use technology to serve ads to mobile listenersbased on their location (whether they’re listening to a locally targeted station or a national service), or to serve specific niche audiences (once the dream of HD Radio).

KTeshLA has a direct format competitor in Southern California: Tesh’s former home, Salem’s KFSH-FM. This raises the question of if, and when, KTeshLA will begin a marketing effort to lure listeners away from their FM competition. Once that happens (and assuming Arbitron is encoding the streams of the online station), the real power of a local radio station without a transmitter might be seen for the first time.

Los Angeles, after all, has a significant number of Pandora listeners, and a huge amount of mobile listening. KTeshLA is poised to take advantage of Angelenos' comfort with listening to mobile "radio." Whether it takes months or years, the station could be among the first to be on par with traditional radio. Developments like the "connected dashboard," streaming aggregation applications, and the growing trend among consumers to perceive anything that makes noise on a computer or mobile device is "radio" may make acceptance and adoption of services like KTeshLA easy... perhaps even easier than launching a new format on FM.

While it may seem odd to call John Tesh a “trailblazer,” his project in Los Angeles may serve as one of the early instances of direct-to-listener "broadcasting."

Some thoughts on media.. | Om Malik

2012-05-06T18:55:00.001-05:00

Some thoughts on media..

Earlier this week, at (*) The Guardian’s Activate NYC 2012 conference I shared some of my thoughts about the future of media. Craig Kanalley of The Huffington Post has a good summary of the day, but here are some of the key points I was trying to make during my chat with Max Robins of the Paley Center.

If you had no history and asked how a gourmet food/travel magazine would look today, I would say it would be like Foursquare
I love things like what Paul Berry @teamreboot is doing w/ @lererventures + what @BuzzFeed is doing.
Media industry innovation won’t happen at big companies.
We need Madison Avenue to start innovating. the whole ecosystem needs to be revamped.
Media mergers don’t work out because the person who does the deal leaves, and their replacement doesn’t share the vision.
Short term thinking is pervasive throughout American society and business.

If you want to watch the video, Fora.tv has proceedings from the day.

* The parent company behind the Guardian owns a small stake in GigaOM as a result of our acquisition of paidContent. The invitation to speak came long before we made the deal to buy paidContent.

Some thoughts on media.. | Om Malik

Jacobs Media Techsurvey 8 Infographic Of Doom

2012-04-30T08:27:00.000-05:00

Highly regarded radio consultant Jacobs Media released their annual Techsurvey over the weekend, this one being the eighth installment in the series and looking at over 57,000 radio listeners listening to 170 stations in 12 different radio formats. That's a LOT of data to wade through.

In order to get the "top line" information out quickly, they prepared an infographic with some very interesting results highlighted. You can see it to the left, click on it for a larger version, or go here to see some more top line findings and a big giant version of the infographic on their site.

Some important takeaways that I saw from this early release of the data:

Nearly 6 in 10 people start their day with a media other than radio, and TV continues to narrow radio's lead as the first thing people listen to in the morning.
Make no mistake, Pandora Radio is for real and is a huge competitor to broadcasters. So is Social Media.
The future is mobile, and in many ways the future is here. There are numerous data points showing the penetration of mobile devices into people's everyday lives and that they are consuming audio and other entertainment on those devices.

There's a lot more in the infographic, and Jacobs Media will be releasing more data as time goes on. Watch their site or subscribe to their very informative blog to keep up on the releases of data. Of course, the big news will be mentioned in this space as well.

Here's the bottom line. The future is mobile, personal, and on the listeners' time schedule, not the station's. If you run a radio or TV station, you need to know that, embrace that, and plan your future based on that reality, like it or not.

Who Is Mark Edwards And How Can He Help You?

2012-04-04T14:30:00.000-05:00

I was speaking with a potential client yesterday and she asked me to describe myself. I did, and it made me think that there's another way to describe who I am and what I've done and can do. So, here for our viewing pleasure is the Official Mark Edwards Word Cloud.

Get to know me better at http://www.markedwardsworldwide.com or http://about.me/markedwards!

World Radio Day And How The US Can Learn From The Rest Of The World

2012-03-18T15:58:00.000-05:00

I ran across a post on the PBS Mediashift Idea Lab blog that told me something that I did not know. UNESCO, part of he United Nations, has declared February 13th to be World Radio Day. On their website, here's what they say about radio:

The World Radio Day seeks raise awareness about the importance of radio, facilitate access to information through radio and enhance networking among broadcasters.
Radio has to be recognized as a low cost medium, specifically suited to reach remote communities and vulnerable people: the illiterate, the disabled, women, youth and the poor, while offering a platform to intervene in the public debate, irrespective of people’s educational level. Furthermore, radio has a strong and specific role in emergency communication and disaster relief. There is also a changing face to radio services which, in the present times of media convergence, are taking up new technological forms, such as broadband, mobiles and tablets.

The World Radio Day website, as well as the Idea Lab blog, wax poetic about how radio is important to most of the Earth's inhabitants, but not in the way that American broadcasters have changed the medium in our country. Consider this from Amy O'Donnell, who wrote the Idea Lab post:

In an era where every revolution has a hashtag, we must remind ourselves that community radio has been a forum for collective dialogue for more than 100 years. By a generous estimate, Twitter has 500 million users. Juxtapose this with the 6 billion active mobile subscriptions and 95 percent of people who have access to the radio.

Radio is particularly important for those who aren't online or able to get a newspaper delivered. Radio requires minimal electricity (a negligible amount with a windup or solar radio) and tuning in is free. Applications using SMS with radio -- two of the world's most used platforms -- is proving that mobile technology has the power to create new possibilities by transforming radio from a one-way broadcast to a two-way dialogue with listeners.

She goes on in the post to talk about how radio and SMS messaging has revolutionized communication and community building around the world, especially in the poorest parts of the planet. She speaks about how radio should be decentralized, how important it is for local communities to have control over what their people hear. And she talks at great length about how important radio is to the people who use it. If you are like me and still have any affection for radio, the post is a must read, and you can reach it by the link at the beginning of this paragraph.

I am not here to judge what has happened to American radio, that's something a historian but will do in the future and many are doing now. I still have a deep passion for radio, and while my days of working inside of a radio station may be over, I still believe that radio is a vital communications and entertainment medium for millions of Americans.

The facts are the facts. What is a vital communications link to people all over the world is a business that needs to have a 50% margin in America. What is the only lifeline to billions of people who need it the most and is sometimes the only way for them to communicate with the world outside their community is an experiment in computer automation, centralization, and uniformity in our country.

I know that many of the people who run radio companies in America love radio as much as I do. and I know that radio has become a business that has to deliver a profit. I hope these CEOs can take a few minutes away from looking at the stock charts and dealing with their VC people and can take a cue from World Radio Day and think of ways they can make their properties just as important and relevant to listeners in America as thousands of radio stations are to people around the world.

Radio still means something to a lot of people. Regular people, poor people, rich people, people who are striving just to stay alive. I find the concept of World Radio Day to be inspirational, to show how important a century-old technology still is and can continue to be in the new digital world that we live in.

This is a case where you can have the best of both worlds. You just have to think of how to balance the need for profit with the need for serving the public interest, convenience, and necessity. It can be done, and it would be amazing if some initiatives to make it happen were in place by the first World Radio Day on February 13.

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The Internet Never Closes, Why Does Your "Customer Service"?

2012-03-12T11:18:00.000-05:00

I had another one of those "slap myself in the forehead" moments this morning, and it reminded me how important customer service is in the age of the always running, worldwide, time zone agnostic Internet.

All weekend long, I tried to upload songs to my (now I guess I call it) Google play music library in the cloud. I probably tried to do it ten times starting on Saturday and running until Monday morning, and had no success any time. I did all the normal troubleshooting and still no luck. For some reason, I was getting a message that the application was unable to connect to the server. Normally, that means a problem on the server side, but sometimes it could be a problem with my home network. Hence, I was a little concerned that I couldn't reach a service that I've never had problems reaching before.

On Monday morning I ran some troubleshooting and went to the Google help site, which is an adventure in itself. I finally found an option to have someone from Google call me to discuss my problem, which I will admit I had not seen before. I put my number in, and about 15 seconds later a very nice lady from Google was on my phone. When I explained to her what was going on, she replied with "oh yeah, there's some kind of a problem with the server. We've been having it all weekend and we know all about it."

HUH?

I was a little taken aback by both the casual nature of her response and what she was saying to me. Google knew they had a problem all weekend but didn't let anybody know about it. I asked her if it was posted on a blog, a tweet, or somewhere in the application, and she said no because it was the weekend. I asked her when something might be posted to give us an update on the problem and she told me that it's Monday and people are trying to get their week started, so something may not be out until later today if the problem is still going on.

HUH?

Maybe it's my training in broadcasting, where our business was always open or maybe it's just my understanding of the fact that the Google play service is always running, used around the world, and it's 9 AM somewhere at any time. Just because this issue happen on the weekend, it shouldn't be overlooked or not communicated to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of users sitting at their computers wondering what's going wrong. Rather than not acknowledge that there's a problem, here are some things Google could have done had they decided to actually take this concept of an ever–operating Internet seriously.

They could have sent tweets out saying that there was a problem with the application and that they were aware of it.
Many Google products have blogs or other status update sites, and the issue could have been added to the site for this product.
With a minimal amount of coding, an announcement that there was a problem with the app could have been put into the app itself.

If you run a business that does almost anything on the Internet, it's important to remember that your business really truly never closes when it's online. Stunningly, Google seems to have forgotten that when they had this problem with Google play.

You, as a business owner, can avoid the problem by having someone on staff on call and available to fix a big problem should something go wrong. It could be knowing that your brick and mortar business is going to be closed tomorrow because of snow, it could be that your e-commerce vendor is down, or it could be that you're doing some work on your website that you hadn't planned on and you need to put up a landing page.

Whatever the reason, someone should be able to communicate to your visitors and customers that things are not as they should be and give a very rough estimate as to when they'll be okay again.

As we had into the mobile-based, highly personalized, on-demand world shaped by the Internet, it's important to remember that old concepts like business hours have to be redefined for a new age. If someone as big as Google hasn't figured that out, the small business that does will look like a trailblazer.

This Post Should Be Read By Every Executive In The Radio Business

2012-03-09T09:46:00.002-06:00

I've written before about how radio is on the fast track to irrelevance, and that the smart owners and execs in the radio industry have the power to stop that and save the business. Media guru Mark Ramsey wrote about Pandora and how radio is freaking out about it but shouldn't on his blog yesterday.

Today, I found a blog post by Steve Parker, Jr. talking about what I think is the root problem for most radio companies and stations when it comes to their digital future or lack thereof. Quite simply, they lack a digital strategy, even if they think they have one. I've worked for companies whose long term digital strategy changed as often as I changed my socks. That won't get you to the Promised Land in an era of mobile, personalized, on-demand communication and entertainment. And the people who run most of the big radio groups just don't get it.

Here's Mr. Parker's post in full, via Jack Myers Media Business Report's website

Lack of Digital Strategy & Accountability is Killing Brands - Steve Parker, Jr.-Levelwing

March 9, 2012

Published: March 9, 2012 at 02:55 PM GMT
Last Updated: March 9, 2012 at 02:55 PM GMT

'Doing' is not strategic insight. Just because it is measurable does not mean it is accountable.

If you are reading this and don't own a smartphone, you might as well stop right now. You won't understand nor can you be helped at this point – the technology world has passed you by. To the rest of you who have an iPhone or another 'super' smartphone, such as a Droid or Blackberry, read on. Many of you are probably reading this from your mobile phone as we speak. In fact, I'm doubtful you could put it down for a day or even a few hours. We have all become heavily reliant on our mobile devices – and for great reason. Mobile phones don't just make calls anymore; they actually help us in our daily lives. In your personal life, you have bought this device so you could have the 'Power of the Best' – best technology, best experience, best of everything. So, why in your business life are you settling for something that only makes calls? Seriously, why have you settled for the basics, knowing very well there is something much better and much more powerful? In the business world, this mindset goes way beyond phones: using Google Analytics when you could be using Omniture or simply reporting on campaigns vs. uncovering true business intelligence.

Smartphones have apps for seemingly everything – simple tools we use nearly every day for things like travel, directions, games, photos and social experiences. We use our phones to talk, write, chat, video conference, listen to music, check blood pressure, buy products, sell products, check email, do our online banking…

In short, smartphones and apps are all around us and engrained in our daily lives. But there are some things an iPhone or Droid just can't do. Contrary to popular belief, 'there's an app for that' doesn't actually apply to everything.

Digital Strategy:
Sorry, there is not actually a digital strategy app. However, most businesses are treating digital as though there is some magical strategic app that will make it easy to grow a business. Facebook is not a strategy. Twitter is not a strategy. Search engine marketing is not a strategy. Most companies, from the Fortune 500 to the local dry cleaner, do not have a sound digital strategy. You could argue this, but you would be wrong. It's true many businesses are implementing digital activities and, in some cases, doing a lot and seeing success. However a solid, well-planned strategy is lacking in most every case. Executing upon paid search marketing campaigns, communicating via Twitter or delivering a set of viral videos online is not strategy. I will clarify that I do believe in strategy for each of those separate executional elements (solid planning, measurement and management process, if you will), but an overarching strategy is still of most significant importance.

Measurement & Accountability:
Sorry, no app here either. Most businesses in the digital world fail to achieve true measurement and accountability – it's arguably one of areas most wrought with error. Many companies simply choose not to hold their investments in digital accountable. Let me be clear: measuring and reporting on clicks, likes, fans, site traffic, sales, share of voice and ad rates on some nifty dashboard is not the same thing as holding your marketing investments accountable. Those metrics (and many others like them) provide your business with little more than false hope and misdirection. Measurement and accountability are not quite so convenient and easy to attain. True accountability takes dedication, hard-nosed planning and a keen focus on goals.

Why Do Businesses Fail at Strategy or Accountability?
The answer is an inability to answer a simple question: 'why?' Most businesses do not know WHY they are doing the things they are doing in digital. No, the answer is not as simple as 'to sell more stuff.' That's the derivative – it is always the derivative or the expected outcome. But WHY are businesses doing the things they are doing? Are they doing them because of economic indicators, weather patters, overall demand in the marketplace, to provide better service to customers, to refine customer channel strategy, to define patterns in the business that can be shared throughout the organizational hierarchy? WHY? An honest and clear digital strategy answers these questions, provides clarity and then allows the business to execute strategically against them. Just because a million dollars was spent and a study shows brand awareness increased by four points does not mean the campaign was a success. Similarly, just because that $1 million in media sold $2 million of products does not mean it was successful either. You must understand why that happened and how you can improve from there. 'Doing' is not strategic insight. Just because it is measurable does not mean it is accountable.

People Are the Only Apps of Strategy and Accountability
People are the real applications that drive a business. Driving strategy and critical thinking while holding a business accountable starts with people. People have the power to create, guide, teach, define, measure and hold accountable that which is meaningful. Without true strategy and accountability, most well intended efforts will fail. You and your team of co-workers, senior leadership and third-party partners should fight for the hard answers, to define strategic vision and hold accountable all tactics and people involved. It's not easy, but it is right.

I've read that Steve Jobs didn't believe in the whole concept of apps initially. Good thing he got on board, though. They have helped to transform Apple and the ways we interact with our devices. However, one thing I am certain of is that he did not rely on an app to plan his business nor let something that is measured define accountability. Steve Jobs understood the complexity of strategy, held the business accountable and delivered well against that strategy and accountability plan. Sometimes our apps need updating – and, frankly, we are those apps.

Steve Parker, Jr. is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Levelwing, a digital advertising agency that provides data-driven marketing solutions. Steve can be reached at sparker@levelwing.com. Follow me on Twitter at @sparkerjr.

This advice applies to almost any brand, but it is particularly relevant to radio, because radio can choose to embrace the future or continue, in most cases, to not acknowledge it. Or to think they've got their "digital strategy" under control and in reality be far behind the rest of the Digital Universe because they rely on second tier vendors and second tier "Digital Gurus" inside their organizations.

Don't get me wrong, I WANT radio to win the Digital battle. But how many radio companies started working Wednesday afternoon to make sure their station or group iPad app would look right on the new Retina display? For that matter, how many radio companies even HAVE iPad apps?

What was once the digital equivalent of Thomas The Tank Engine is quickly becoming a Bullet Train, and radio has to get on board, be able to react instantly to changes in technology and user behavior, and do whatever it takes to stay relevant in a Pandora world. I know some groups and stations can do this. I just wish the ones that can't or won't would get on board the train before it runs them over.

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Mediaite Botches Facts, Makes Carbonbite Look Less Lame

2012-03-04T13:04:00.000-06:00

The web site Mediaite ran a story Sunday morning about online backup company Carbonite and their pulling ads from Rush Limbaugh's show after Limbaugh's remarks about Sandra Fluke. This post isn't about the Limbaugh/Fluke issue, it's about the massive inaccuracies in the Mediaite story.

Here is what was posted on Mediaite Sunday morning:

Even After Apology, Web Company Still Withdrawing Ads From Limbaugh Show

by Josh Feldman | 11:19 am, March 4th, 2012
» 40 comments

Rush Limbaugh finally issued an apology for his remarks calling Georgetown student Sandra Flukea “slut” in the midst of a national conversation on birth control. Before his apology, several companies announced they would be pulling their ads from the Limbaugh program because they do not want to be associated with the radio host.

RELATED: Report: Advertisers Respond To Rush Limbaugh Calling Sandra Fluke A ‘Slut’

However, even after Limbaugh’s apology, at least one company is not simply accepting it and moving on. Carbonite, an online backup service, decided to pull advertising several days ago, and CEO David Friend is not backing down from that position even after Limbaugh’s apology last night.

No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.

Below is the comment I posted in their comments section with some more relevant information.

Your story has factual errors in regards to Carbonite and their pulling their spots from Limbaugh's show. Shame on you.

Might be prudent to check your timeline on this story, and the Twitter timeline on Carbonite. They took their sweet time in pulling their ads, may have been the last major advertiser to bail, and tweeted that they were still evaluating their position as recently as Saturday afternoon. They'e sanitized their Twitter stream, but THIS was posted on their blog the afternoon of March 2nd:

Over the past two days we have received a tremendous amount of feedback on Rush Limbaugh’s recent comments. I too am offended and very concerned about his comments. Limbaugh’s remarks have us rethinking our future use of talk radio. We use more than 40 talk show hosts to help get the Carbonite message out to the public. The nature of talk radio is that from time to time listeners are offended by a host and ask that we pull our advertising. This goes for conservatives like Limbaugh and progressives like Stephanie Miller and Ed Shultz. We even get customers who demand that we pull the plug on NPR. As an advertiser, we do not have control over a show’s editorial content or what they say on air. Carbonite does not endorse the opinions of the shows or their hosts. However, the outcry over Limbaugh is the worst we’ve ever seen. I have scheduled a face-to-face meeting next week with Limbaugh during which I will impress upon him that his comments were offensive to many of our customers and employees alike. Please know your voice has been heard and that we are taking this matter very seriously.

Only on the evening of Saturday, March 3rd did they announce that they had come to their senses and pulled their ads, the LAST major advertiser to do so.

UPDATEA Statement from David Friend, CEO of Carbonite as of 6:45pm ET, March 3:“No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

An intern could have found this information and helped write an accurate story. This is far below Mediaite's standards of accuracy.

It's not my place to be a media critic, I leave that to people like Howard Kurtz and Robert Feder among others. However, as someone who was one of the first radio programmers to carry Rush Limbaugh's show and who still does work with both broadcast and online clients, I have to call Dan Abrams and Mediaite out for letting such blatant inaccuracy hit the web. They made Carbonite look far better than they deserved to as a company and brought the reliability of their own reporting into question.

UPDATE: I've seen similar stories on sites like Huffington Post, so I'm guessing Carbonite hired a good crisis management person to put their spin out to these websites knowing nobody there would actually confirm the information. Again reinforcing my mantra that you can't always believe what you read online.

Rare Video Cameo By Mark Edwards

2012-03-02T08:37:00.002-06:00

First of all, let's get the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way. I did not receive any compensation for appearing in this video, writing this post, or endorsing the company involved in the project. So take THAT, Federal Trade Commission.

One of the most important things in establishing a presence on the Internet is to have a dependable, reliable web hosting service. The company you choose is your lifeline to the Internet, and they have to provide hosting, keep your domain registration straight, and make sure that you're not missing any opportunities to promote your business on the web.

For a long time, I was a customer of GoDaddy.com. Their prices were fair, their service was good, and they never messed me over. However, they made the critical error of supporting Internet censorship legislation and I could no longer do business with them in good conscience. I asked my friends and Twitter followers who provided good hosting and domain services, and heard about a company called name.com. After a little investigation, I moved all of my websites to name.com and have since advised my clients to do business with them as well.

This company provides excellent customer service, comes up with great solutions to my silly problems, and has a great sense of humor. You can see the latter in this video that they produced over the last couple of weeks. They were looking for people to be a part of it, and were kind enough to ask me to join the fun, but you have to look fast to see my appearances. I'll give you a hint, I'm wearing the shirt of my heroes.

No, that is not me in the picture above.

The video is a cute diversion, the work of some people who are really bright about the Internet and know how to have fun at the same time, and comes from a company that I highly recommend if you are looking for any kind of Web services. Just to be clear, read the first paragraph of this post and you'll see that I got nothing for saying that. Nothing. Nada.

If you are so inclined, check out name.com's blog as they are running a contest in connection with this video. Clearly I have no chance of winning it, but you might and it could be worth entering. If nothing else, you can learn a little bit more about this great little company in Denver and the high quality work that they do for Mark Edwards Worldwide, our clients, and people around the country..

Social Media Is Not The Savior

2012-02-14T10:30:00.001-06:00

This is kind of a follow up to the post I put up Sunday about how badly radio handled the death of Whitney Houston. Since then, there's been a lot of chatter among those who regularly drink the Social Media Kool-Aid that Social Media actually broke the story of Whitney Houston's death and therefore it is more important than "real news".

I occasionally drink the Social Media Kool-Aid, although I prefer Monster Energy Drink (no compensation for that mention) but I TOTALLY disagree with that assessment, especially because some people have been looking at the timeline of the alleged first tweet and finding faults in it. Now the very bright Jason Falls, who runs a "must read" site called Social Media Explorer, has some thoughts on this whole situation in his newsletter, which I get nothing to highly endorse but still suggest you sign up for it if you have any interest in social media and want to learn from a really smart guy.

The world of social media patted itself on the back again this weekend, claiming it broke the news of Whitney Houston's death. A Twitter user named Big Chorizo ( @chilemasgrande) who had 14 followers at the time, tweeted his "sources" said the pop diva was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel. This was sent at 7:30 p.m. ET on Feb. 11. The Associated Press was the first media outlet to report the death, citing publicist Kristen Foster with the confirmation, some 27 minutes later.

Here's the problem with the social media zealots getting all worked up over how the media landscape has changed, journalism is dead and social media is the new, democratized stream of information: No one in their right mind would trust Big Chorizo for such information. The AP, however, is a reliable source. There was no news broken until the story was vetted and verified. Twitter didn't scoop the media. Twitter shot first and hoped it hit something. Even a blind soldier gets lucky once and a while.

Remember the early December hoax that Jon Bon Jovi died? Twitter and Facebook got all worked up, ready to claim another media victory. When the alive and well singer posted a dated photo of himself on Facebook, the death-to-media hipsters sulked away and awaited another victory dance.

We can agree that social media has plugged more people into the here-and-now world of news and information and that the media landscape has changed. But our society, U.S. or otherwise, will never trust random users over trusted resources. That, my friends, is why journalism is not dead, nor dying. Until those we trust report the news, it's just a rumor. Even on Twitter.

I appreciate all the comments on the post below, and am glad it started a discussion. But I have to dismiss all the claims that social media was single-handedly responsible for breaking the Whitney Houston story. The media mix now is different than when Elvis died (also in the bathroom) or even when Michael Jackson died. And it will change every day.

My hope is that "traditional media" like radio will wake up and not let itself be left in dust of "new media". Don't give up, don't concede stories to social media, CNN, and TMZ. Every medium should do what it does best and learn how to do it even better in this new media world we live in. I believe the term that applies here is "Innovate Or Die".

The Night Radio Became Irrelevant

2012-02-12T17:12:00.000-06:00

A fallen tower, no more effective than a
radio station that doesn't let its listeners
know what's going on in their world

February 11, 2012 will always live in my mind for two reasons. First, the tragic loss of Whitney Houston, one of the greatest singers I've ever heard and in the same league as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and other iconic singers throughout music history. But that's not the only thing that happened that night. It's the night that radio, as a medium, proved itself irrelevant because Houston's untimely death happened on a Saturday night, a time when the majority of American radio stations look like this.

Nice studio, but nobody is in the chair. Automation is in control.

It doesn't have to be that way. Over the years, the companies who own radio stations, especially the biggest companies with the biggest stations in the biggest markets, have been forced by economics and debt to run much, and in many cases, most of their programming using automation and a practice called voice tracking, where a faraway Air Personality records the things said on the radio days in advance. Many local radio stations only are live weekdays from 6AM-7PM, prime time for advertisers, and a growing number of stations are moving to automation in parts of that time period as well. And few if any stations have a real contingency plan for situations like the death of Whitney Houston.

Whitney Houston 1963-2012

So what does all this have to do with February 11, 2012? Plenty. Whitney Houston's death was announced shortly after 8PM Eastern that evening, and thousands of radio stations were already running unmanned from empty buildings, airing voice tracked local-sounding shows if they were lucky, but most likely broadcasting pre-recorded oldies shows, reruns of talk shows that aired already, dance mix shows assembled days or weeks before, or some other kind of "it's Saturday night and nobody is listening" content. And without a contingency plan or someone willing to take control of their stations in times like these....

What they weren't running in most cases was the news that one of music's all time greats had died in a bathtub in Beverly Hills.

I'm not making this up, I heard it. While updating the story on The Music Meeting website, I listened to the streams of over 100 radio stations, in multiple formats, with multiple owners, and in markets ranging from New York City to Minot, North Dakota. Less than a dozen of those stations either played Whitney Houston's music or talked about her untimely passing. Yes, there is an argument that a Country station shouldn't talk about the death of a pop star, but Whitney Houston was bigger than a normal pop star, she was a Pop ICON. Every radio station should have at least mentioned her death. Or at least that's what I think. You can tell me I'm wrong in the comments below.

Sadly, people who were in charge of the few radio stations who did do something about Whitney Houston's death were busy giving themselves high fives and not helping the other stations in their local cluster or chain to get the word out. Here's a tweet from a Boston radio programmer.

dylansprague@dylansprague

Proud of @Kiss108 and @JAMN945 - on live tonight with Whitney tributes @iHeartRadio

So who DID cover the death of Whitney Houston best? Who stopped everything and devoted all their time to the biggest pop culture story in a very long time? CNN and Piers Morgan. The network's Don Lemon told the story on the air that he had finished his usual Saturday shift and as he was leaving the CNN Center in Atlanta he got the word to go back upstairs to the CNN studios because Whitney Houston was dead. Lemon had no time to prepare for the story but did a tremendous job of covering it in the early moments as the news was literally being fed to him in his ear and he was reading it from his Blackberry.

In time, Piers Morgan showed up from his Los Angeles studio. He was on his way to the annual Clive Davis pre-Grammy party at the same hotel where Whitney Houston died. Along with his showrunner Johathan Wald, Morgan did a tremendous job of doing interviews with Houston's friends and entertainment business heavyweights, getting live reports via phone and from reporters on the scene around Los Angeles, and telling the story of Whitney Houston's death with respect, sensitivity, and compassion. He and the CNN team did what radio used to be great at no matter what time it was, clearing the decks and providing complete coverage of a story that certainly was news, but was also pop culture and certainly would be the only thing people would be talking about for days, probably weeks.

It isn't too late for radio to reclaim the position as the "go to" place when a musician or pop icon dies, or even when severe weather hits.

We all remember the stories from last summer of radio stations who waited too long to broadcast severe weather alerts because there wasn't anyone in the studio to quickly get them on the air. With a little thought and a commitment that starts at the top and filters down to the entire radio station staff, radio can be ready to deal with whatever comes up, no matter when it happens.

If you're a radio owner, manager, programmer, or the newest "Baby DJ", here are some things you can do now to be ready for the next "big thing":

Make a written plan, with copies in every studio, the engineering department, every department head's office, and on the station's computer network with plans on what should be done in the case of big events, including severe weather, serious local news event, major power outages, national emergency, national news, news of interest to each station's listeners (by format and location) and more.
Decide who has the authority to interrupt regular programming to get the news on.
Know what resources are available to each station: other stations in the cluster, local news partners like TV stations or newspapers, national news networks, and local experts on different types of mayhem and pop culture.
Have a plan for someone to come into the radio station to deal with the situation. Whether it's a tornado warning or the death of an artist, someone on staff should be on call at all times to drop everything and do what Piers Morgan did as soon as he learned that Whitney Houston had died.
Work with sister stations in nearby markets, especially larger markets, to see if they can help you get content on the air when you can't do it yourself.
(Sorry, this may make engineers and some Managers cringe) Investigate a way to get on the air from outside the station when the studios are unstaffed. Can you use a remote control and code to break into programming via telephone? Do you want to get fancy and do it over the internet? Can the news/talk station in the cluster, the one most likely to have people on staff for the most hours, take over the air of all its sister stations?
Don't forget, radio is now more than just radio. What's the plan to update text message subscribers, social networks, and your website?
Finally, discuss with all the stakeholders in each station what qualifies as important enough to break in to each station. Music format can help you decide how big a star from another format should be before you break into a totally different format. There may be other considerations as well, like what if someone from your area is in the news or passes away? Sometimes there's no set answer for this question, but thinking about it will make the decision to interrupt or not interrupt much easier.

I still believe that radio can fix many of the things it has messed up over the last few years. One of them is reclaiming the place in listeners' minds as the first place to go for the latest news and information. What do you think? Please feel free to comment below. Let's come up with some ideas every radio station can use.

Mark Edwards Worldwide Featured In "Taylor On Radio-Info"

2012-02-08T22:32:00.000-06:00

The prestigious radio industry website and publication Taylor On Radio-Info wrote about "The Music Meeting", the latest in the portfolio of online assets maintained by Mark Edwards Worldwide.

“The Music Meeting” is a new Mark Edwards site focusing on “music for adults.” Mark’s programmed adult-leaning stations in Kansas City, St. Louis, Denver, Philadelphia and Chicago. He says that after getting downsized last October “I am listening to music like a real person again.” So the Music Meeting website is a consumer-facing site with music news and commentary. (Mark calls Lana Del Rey “the biggest fraud since Bernie Madoff” and has news of Paul McCartney’s “early Valentine’s gift.”) Meanwhile, the veteran PD and strategist is also operating Mark Edwards Worldwide, serving business and artists who want to “use the Internet and social media in ways they’ve never imagined before.” Mark’s “Music Meeting" site is here http://www.musicmeeting.co.

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Media Jobs Vaporize In Last Ten Years

How Jobs In The Media Industry Got Demolished In The Last 10 Years [Charts]

Total media jobs peaked at the beginning of the decade.

Employment in the book/periodical/music industry has been on a steady downward trend, and in 2011 the bottom completely fell out of the industry.

Sound recording? Same deal.

You don't even want to look at the falloff in newspaper reporting.

Radio? Oof.

Motion picture distribution has been on an ugly trend (thanks Netflix).

On the flipside, production employment has been all over the map, but not that bad.

Television broadcasting jobs hav gone down.

But at least internet publishing is up!

There are many media jobs where growth is expected. Unfortunately for reporters, reporters aren't one of them.

Unionization across the media/information landscape has been on an ongoing decline.

And of course, here's the culprit. The internet.

The good news! Although job security is not good, workplace safety is better than in the average field.

We Didn't Start The Fire-Bob Shannon

We Didn’t Start the Fire

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Some thoughts on media.. | Om Malik

Om Malik

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